


Broken Pack

by Raven_Hallowryn



Series: Caged Birds and Tamed Bats [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: A/B/O, Alfred POV, Alfred Pennyworth is a good dad, Alpha Bruce, Alpha Jason, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Autistic Bruce Wayne, Beta Alfred, Brudick - Freeform, Dead Robins, Death, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mourning, Multi, Omega Dick, Omegaverse, Whump, dick grayson is presumed dead, jason todd is recently deceased, needs to be read in CBDS context, not much comfort, side ficlet for CBDS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22749733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Hallowryn/pseuds/Raven_Hallowryn
Summary: It's been a year since Dick went missing, a lot has happened and Bruce isn't taking any of it well.Alfred PoV
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Series: Caged Birds and Tamed Bats [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635715
Comments: 22
Kudos: 137





	Broken Pack

**Author's Note:**

> My CBDS readers were very angry and outraged at Bruce for failing to save Dick and being absent. Everybody was asking what happened to Bruce so I made this thing to give a little insight to Bruce's side of the story.  
> You should probably read "Caged Birds Don't Sing" (currently on chapter 9 as this is posted) to understand this universe.

Bruce Wayne still loved his parents, always would, he had no reason not to, they had been good parents- caring, attentive, protective, proud, encouraging, inspiring. They had been good people.

But no matter how much Bruce had loved Thomas Wayne, he loved Alfred Pennyworth even more.

It wasn’t something easy for him to say, not like it was with Thomas who had been there for Bruce’s first words and steps and feelings, when he started to learn what love was but still had no concept of filter or pride or propriety and therefore had no need to for shields, by the time he realized he loved Alfred he already had shields, walls higher and thicker than anyone could climb.

So no, it wasn’t easy for him to express his love and affection for Alfred, not verbally and not physically, he always felt like there was a weird hierarchical barrier he had to respect but Alfred had been with him far longer than Thomas ever was, he’d been there for all the things that mattered, all the milestones, he’d been love and he’d been discipline and everything else Bruce ever needed. Maybe it was a little unfair to compare the two, Thomas wasn’t gone on his own free will after all, but it wasn’t a competition, Bruce’s love for one did not negate his love for the other.

Bruce Wayne loved Alfred Pennyworth and that is the only reason why Alfred could see him as he was at that moment, that’s the only reason he was allowed to witness a vulnerability that nobody else was privy to, Bruce would rather die than let anyone see this level of weakness.

Bruce, not Batman, was sitting in the chilly air of the batcave, it was dark, only the computer he was front of gave any light from its various screens, he was hunched over on his chair in one of his usual black turtlenecks and grey slacks, it would all seem pretty normal if it wasn’t for the fact that he wasn’t looking at the monitors at all, in fact one of said monitors (one of the older non-holographic ones) was smashed a couple of feet away from the desk.

Bruce’s head was in his hands with his elbows on the table, hair disheveled and greasy, he was curled in on himself with shoulders shaking minutely, there were shards of a broken WE mug on the floor and one his hands was bleeding in rivulets from when he crushed the mug, the coppery scent of blood tinted the already unnerving cloud of sorrow and distress around the alpha.

Alfred approached silently, it wasn’t the first time he saw Bruce having a meltdown so he new better than to startle him. He noticed a crumpled up piece of paper on the floor and bent down to retrieve it, a cursory glance at the contends and… Well, that explained the master’s anguish.

“Master Bruce.” Alfred called, softly, looking for the right thing to say.

“I can’t do it, Alfred.” Bruce spoke into his hands, voice cracked and wet. “I can’t go to a funeral for someone I don’t believe is dead.”

Alfred could point out that Bruce had been to fake funerals before, more than once had a case led to someone faking their deaths, but he held his tongue, this was a special situation after all.

“Master Bruce, it’s been a year. People need closure.” Alfred tentatively placed his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, hoping this would be one of those times where physical contact would be welcome.

“I don’t give a damn about their closure! They should be helping me find him!” Bruce snapped, finally looking up at the butler- his face was streaked with tears and smears of his own blood, his eyes were red and ringed with dark shadows, he had the beginnings of an impressive beard.

“Yes, of course, nobody has been the least bit helpful.” Through the sarcasm Alfred pursed his lips, hiding concern under snark, he pulled out a handkerchief and began to wipe the master’s face gently. “Superman merely scoured the Earth with his super-senses for weeks, Miss Zatara just used magical scying for days on end and still does so occasionally when you call in the middle of the night, the Titans just chased a man halfway across the planet for brutality and information, Wonder Woman merely volunteered her lasso to confirm said information, Miss Gordon just placed illegal surveillance on Interpol computers to find leads for you, Miss Kane just shouldered your vigilante responsibilities in Gotham while you were searching, the Manhunter, the Flash…”

“I get it, Alfred!” Bruce shook himself out of the butler’s grasp almost childishly but his tone was not angry, it was frustrated, yes, but mostly exhausted.

There was a long drawn out silence while Bruce scrubbed at his own face for a few futile moments before he buried it back in his hands, he didn’t seem to care that he was still bleeding but it was getting on Alfred’s nerves so he made himself a little first aid kit in the medbay and returned to patch up the cut.

Bruce didn’t argue when the butler sat on a stool and pulled his injured hand for a closer look, he was still shaking, his leg bouncing erratically as he chewed on his lip and flexed the fingers of his free hand to crack the knuckles, all little old habits and stims that he had learned to control over the years but that weaseled their way out whenever he allowed himself to be vulnerable.

Alfred sighed as he plucked a little piece of ceramic from the wound and then began to disinfect it, there would be no need for stitches but he still had to put some salve on it and bandage it up and as he did that he glanced at the computer and caught glimpses of what Bruce had been obsessing over when he broke down.

The best description he had for what he was seeing was a ‘virtual conspiracy board’- there was surveillance footage and recordings of the interrogation of Deathstroke, police reports, Titans Tower footage of an outright massacre, photos of Talia and Ra’s Al Ghul conducting business in both Cairo and Hong Kong, financial reports from various suspicious upper class families, ancient and modern files on an elusive secret society with connections all over the world, blurry distant photos of an assassin in black and gold with a penchant for throwing knives and acrobatics, and so much more.

Paper trails, money trails, blood trails and spy footage of all sorts all connected by glowing lines, it was headache-levels of confusing and all mildly disturbing but none so much as the crime scene photos of a basement in a decrepit building in Rome with a grimy concrete tub full of acid and Nightwing’s half destroyed suit in it, shackles and chains and old dried blood splatter on the floor and walls.

He would never show it, but Alfred felt sick at the sight of those photos and didn’t understand how Bruce could torture himself looking at them for hours on end, for months. Well, at least it wasn’t as graphic as the _other_ board, Jason’s board…

“Have you ever considered that the reason nobody has found anything is because there is nothing to find?” Alfred spoke softly, measuring each syllable carefully, still holding the bandaged hand of the man that was essentially his son.

“I don’t believe that. They gave up too soon.” Bruce’s deep growly voice was still cracked and wobbly.

“Master Bruce, they gave up because they found proof that Master Dick…”

“He’s not dead, there was no body.” Bruce interrupted before Alfred got to say the words that still stuck in his throat like glue.

“There was nigh indestructible Nightwing suit half melted in a tub of acid and Master Dick’s DNA all over that room. I don’t think there would be a body to salvage.” That was a few months after Dick went missing, by then they had already exhausted their efforts and every lead had come up empty.

“It’s a trick to throw us off, he’s hidden somewhere.” Bruce sounded borderline delusional and maybe a little on the edge of hysterical.

“Sir…” Alfred began and then sighed and moved closer, petting the alpha’s hair gently as if he was still the little boy Alfred used to comfort back to sleep with his scent and careful touches after nightmares. “Bruce, maybe the one that needs closure the most is you, dear boy.”

“No.” Bruce was in denial, everyone knew it and everyone worried but nobody could dissuade him from this insane idea that Dick was still out there. He had buried a son, he wasn’t willing to bury a lover, partner and best friend, as well.

“As you wish, sir.” Alfred replied reluctantly.

He knew he should probably leave Bruce alone but he didn’t think that was a good idea, instead he got a broom and mop from the supply closet and got to cleaning the shards of the mug and splatters of coffee, slowly and meticulously. Once he was done he examined the alpha again, saw him curl further in his seat in a way that couldn’t be comfortable for his broken ribs, he was running his hands through his messy hair, face a blank slate but occasionally rocking minutely though more out of anxious energy now than raking sobs, it was marvelously macabre how quickly he shut down his emotions to avoid dealing with them.

Alfred frowned and moved through the cave to get one of the heavy Batman capes from the armory, on his way back he stopped in front of the gallery, among the many trophies, tokens, memories and retired suits where two new glass cases- one sported a robin uniform that Alfred had done his best to lovingly clean and repair but there were still tattered and burned edges visible, the other case held the heavily damaged Nightwing uniform with a pristine replacement mask because the real one had never been recovered.

The pack was broken, irreparably fractured without their two youngest members. You could argue that Alfred was an enabler and maybe he was but he had always also been the rock, the nurturer and the mender, yet this was one situation even he didn’t know how to fix.

The pack leader was losing it, running himself ragged in his denial and compulsive search, refusing to admit that maybe the reason the greatest detective couldn’t find someone was because there was no one to find, becoming more and more unhinged in his own personal crusade for justice that was slowly turning into a violent outlet for grief and revenge.

And Alfred? He didn’t know what to do because he was mourning the loss of the boys that had been like his own child and grandchild, he too was suffering and unlike Bruce who at least still had his League and his mission, Alfred had nobody to turn to for comfort, nobody that could truly understand his position or the family’s lifestyle.

Alfred steeled himself, sniffling and composing himself quickly before the grief had time to catch up with him, it wouldn’t do to show his own weakness in front of Bruce when the alpha was so upset already. Maybe Bruce had gotten that from him, maybe he had learned to be controlled and emotionally repressed from Alfred, it never really occurred to the butler until that moment.

By the time he got back to the computer, Bruce was still the same wreck but this time the monitor screen was covered in different photos, random pictures of Dick smiling as always and some of Jason being his sassy self, in a couple of pictures Bruce was present too- in one he was serious and overly stiff with Jason grinning widely and leaning on him, in the other Dick had an arm around his shoulders and the other was stretched out to take the photo, in that particular picture the alpha had a smile that for once was not entirely fake and practiced on his face, it was the smallest little grin with that tiny edge of cocky petulance that meant he was genuinely happy.

The images warmed the butler’s heart but he knew that this was just another form of self-torture for Bruce and that made him sigh and shake his head. He approached the master and gently placed the overly heavy cape over the man’s shoulders, knowing the surrounding weight and warmth was always a comfort.

“Shall I prepare your bed, sir? Or are you planning on having it converted into a museum?” Alfred tried for casual even if all that came out was concern.

“Hn.” Bruce gave a typical noncommittal grunt, he’d actually already been shockingly more verbal that day than in past several weeks combined.

“Articulate as always, Master Bruce, but I’m afraid I have to insist that you rest.” Alfred glanced at his watch, noting just how late it was already. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”

Bruce didn’t answer, he wrapped the cape closer to his body and stared at nothing in particular for long enough that Alfred was about to start talking again, he didn’t get to do so only because out of the blue, the alpha suddenly said- “…They want a grave here in the family plot, next to Jason’s.”

“Who exactly is this ‘they’?” The beta wondered, hands crossed at the small of his back in an attempt to seem neutral. He didn’t dislike the idea, in fact it felt right, but the thought that people were badgering Bruce about such things instead of letting Alfred handle those details irked him.

“Dick’s friends. They claim it’s more appropriate than the cemetery, even if right now he has no legal connections to the Wayne name beyond being pack.” Bruce’s voice lacked inflection and his face lacked expression but Alfred knew him well enough to know something about all this upset him and whether it was the actual grave even existing or the implication that Dick lacked proper ties to the family that was hard to tell.

“And what do you think?”

“It’s a headstone, a rock. He’s not really in there, they can do as they please.” Again, Bruce displayed little to no physical reaction but the clinical words felt like a slap.

“Are you going?” That was the real issue, wasn’t it? That was what had the alpha so upset in the first place.

“…” Bruce seemed about to answer but then fell into a distant contemplative silence.

“I shall prepare your suit.” Alfred decided with certainty and finality.

“I’m not going.” Bruce decided, staring at the monitor now and absently closing photos.

“Why is that, pray tell?”

“It’s a sham.” Bruce actually shrugged a shoulder, not much though because the movement pulled at his hurt ribs and bruised shoulder in the wrong way, he was healing well from the savagery of a few nights before against Killer Croc but it was only a matter of time before he threw himself at another fight.

“Master Bruce, I don’t often like to tell you how to live your life but I’d like to believe I raised you better than this.” Alfred scolded, placing an admonishing hand firmly on the back of the alpha’s neck as if he were a child, it got the desired result because Bruce cowed ever so slightly and glanced at him meekly. “You are going to that funeral, you will be polite and you will allow everyone to mourn.” _You will allow yourself to mourn._ “After that you can return to your regularly scheduled brooding.”

Bruce kept looking at him quietly until Alfred let go and placed his hand between broad shoulder blades instead, the alpha relaxed almost immediately, if only minutely.

“Alfred…” Bruce began, voice shaky all over again.

“Yes, Bruce?” He tried to remain gentle, could feel the swell of tension in his boy and the shift in pheromones that went from triggered and frantically upset to suddenly melancholic and heavy with a cloying sort of sorrow that was like trying to breathe in cotton and liquid nitrogen.

“I’m afraid.” The alpha’s voice was small, as if admitting this had him shrinking back to childhood.

“Of what, dear boy?” Alfred rubbed down the man’s back patiently.

“I’m afraid that if I let myself feel, grieve, I’ll be giving up on him.” Bruce hung his head, hiding his eyes as his shoulders trembled and his breath hitched on a quiet sob. “I can’t lose him too.”

Bruce’s face might not show it and his depressed body language might still be highly restrained but if the swallowed tears weren’t enough then his scent would give him away, it was absolutely wretched, drenched with the salty smell of tears and the hollow coldness of sorrow and heartbreak that felt like a hole in one’s lungs.

Carefully, Alfred moved in front of Bruce, opening his arms and allowing the alpha to hug him, powerful arms wrapped tight around him with fists balled into the back of his pristine jacket and Bruce’s face buried wetly against his neck, the younger man might be huge and powerful but he was inhumanly quiet and tense, his breathing shaky and frail as if he were a child all over again. The butler held him in that embrace, he too took some comfort from the proximity, nosing at the top of Bruce’s head and rubbing his palms slowly and gently down the alpha’s back.

They should have done this weeks ago, they shouldn’t need a meltdown to get them to seek comfort.

Alfred was…tired. So tired of watching Bruce destroy himself in silence, watching his boy get swallowed up by grief and darkness and denial.

The last year had been a disaster, trauma after trauma, but at least Bruce had mostly remained functional, clinging to his stoic demeanor… That is, until a few days prior when Miss Gordon informed that they were done waiting for Bruce’s permission, they were burying Dick with or without a body, and they felt he should be there.

Bruce was already deeply broken but that… That had triggered levels of self-destruction that Alfred hadn’t seen since his boy was twelve and mourning his parents, even then it hadn’t been this viscerally painful, if one didn’t know better one could assume Dick and Bruce had already been bonded because that was how Bruce was acting- like someone who just lost his lifelong mate, someone who had his bond forcefully broken and was slowly rotting from the frayed edges inside him where that connection had been ripped away.

He was acting like someone dying of heartbreak but too stubborn to actually lie in the grave.

The hug dragged on until Bruce was sagging against him, tiredness winning over everything else. It took some coaching but minutes later the computer was off and Alfred was herding the alpha to bed, the walk up the stairs and towards the room was silent and Bruce didn’t even bother to shower and only got out of his clothes because the butler helped pull them off.

Alfred stayed close until Bruce fell asleep, as he busied himself preparing a suit for the funeral he spoke softly of everything Miss Kane had told him about her patrol in Bruce’s place that night and when he was done the alpha was already asleep curled around a pillow as if he was missing something to hold on to. Alfred tucked the heavy blankets more securely around his boy and left without a sound.

Once he was in his own quarters, Alfred finally allowed himself to feel- he stopped trying to hold back, stopped the gargantuan effort that was keeping his pheromones in check by leveling his emotions, stopped trying to keep a neutral expression; instead he sat on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands just as Bruce had done earlier, he could feel a knot in his chest and throat and a sting in his eyes and he welcomed the tide of pain.

The pack was broken. Everything hurt.

Dick had disappeared a year ago- at first Bruce didn’t even know, when Dick was with the Titans he was often off the radar for days on end, weeks sometimes, even going on missions off world on occasion. Bruce didn’t worry because Dick had proven his skill and intelligence, he could take care of himself and the Titans had each other’s backs and could rescue one another if needed, Dick didn’t need (and absolutely didn’t want) Bruce to hold his hand or jump in every time there was a Titans emergency. So Bruce had put his focus on the other problem in his hands.

A week after Dick left for the Titans, Bruce had allowed Jason back on patrol, he was taking Dick’s advice and trusting the boy, but then a criminal they were chasing died and although they didn’t want to believe Jason had done it, all the proof (and Jason’s growing anger issues) said otherwise. The boy had been upset at the accusations and a day later he had run away. Finding him was a mess but they did and by the end of the next week Bruce and Jason were trying to solve their problems in radical ways and found themselves in Ethiopia, where Sheila Haywood betrayed her son and the Joker brutally murdered Robin in the most gruesome of ways.

Bruce had taken the death terribly, by the time he got back to Gotham with Jason’s body he was losing his mind and seething with the desire to destroy the Joker. He desistiu wanted to break his own Cardinal rule. He needed Dick, needed his better half at the funeral, and so Alfred had reached out only to discover Dick was missing, that was when the Titans cracked and asked for help, they needed Batman’s aid to track Deathstroke.

Jason’s funeral passed in a blur of guilt, anger, sorrow and regret, and then, already fueled by grief and rage and worry, Bruce threw himself into searching for Dick, took the reigns right out of the Titans hands but the trail had cooled and Slade Wilson was the best at his job for a reason.

Deathstroke was eventually spotted a month later when his MO popped up all over a murdered politician in Turkey and they tracked him there. Bruce interrogated Wilson, Diana offered her help but the man wouldn’t crack, it’s not that he lied but rather that he refused to talk and claimed simply that he had dropped off a live Nightwing with his employer. If Wilson hadn’t been so fantastically good at healing he might not have made it out of that interrogation room, he was handed over to Interpol instead but, predictably, didn’t stay in custody very long.

Finding Dick became an obsession for Bruce, it had been so long that the chances of ever finding Nightwing were dwindling as the days passed so he asked for the kind of help he was always reluctant to accept- supernatural and metahuman.

Zatanna couldn’t find anything with her magic, nor could Superman with his hearing and he knew Dick’s voice and heartbeat well enough that if got within range he should have been able to find him without a doubt. Neither of them detected a trace and stated that, although it was possible for some things to override their individual skillsets it was highly unlikely for something to fool them both, it was more likely that Dick was no longer alive. Bruce told them to kindly fuck off and turned to Manhunter for help instead but J’onn came back empty handed too.

After that, Batman was spotted all over Europe tracking down all of Deathstroke’s known employers (how he got his hands on that information Alfred didn’t know) while directing the Titans to follow a myriad of dangerous leads, the level of violence and just barely non-lethal bloodshed he unleashed made all his allies uncomfortable, Superman and the Flash tried to intervene at some point because his overzealous actions were getting more and more reckless and close to getting him killed.

Eventually there was a slim lead about Wilson conducting business with the League of Shadows, Bruce knew the man had trained with them too but hadn’t realized he was still connected to the assassins; something about that felt wrong to Bruce, he shared as much, seemed to be under the impression that if Talia discovered the change in Dick and Bruce’s relationship she might hurt the omega, she was possessive enough to try.

However, following leads on the Al Ghul’s resulted in nothing more than their usual secretive affairs and then a new lead came in- one of Arsenal’s more deadly informants also connected to the League of Shadows came by some information concerning Nightwing having tangled with a strange secret society with its own special brand of assassins. The clue led to Rome and some unsavory characters with a fetish for porcelain avian masks, which in turn led to the discovery of Nightwing’s suit.

After a thorough investigation of the crime scene the evidence was overwhelming, the Justice League closed the case and the Titans went into mourning. Bruce refused to accept this, ended up alienating all of them but the lack of further evidence sent him back to Gotham where he continued to fixate while Batman returned to the streets consumed with enforcing a whole new brand of justice.

And then Jason’s grave was disturbed, left empty by what they assumed was some sadistic rogue trying to cause more pain. Alfred ended up doing damage control on that front for a while because it triggered a whole new level of unhinged behavior in Bruce, had him unwilling to properly care for himself, focusing exclusively on his nightlife with unprejudiced brutality and not a whole lot of focus. Lucius Fox had to take the reigns of Wayne Enterprises for a while and the media was fed a story about how the famous Gotham socialite Bruce Wayne had become reclusive while mourning his child.

And now this funeral, another trigger to set Bruce off and Alfred wasn’t sure he wanted to see how that would end.

He too didn’t want to give up on Dick, he too still harbored some hope of seeing Dick’s playful smile again and feel his too tight hugs, hear the little chatterbox making the most outrageous puns and laughing over them with that brightness that hid a depth of pain and stress that nobody could quite grasp but that never stopped him from moving forward and staying to true to himself while taking care of everyone else. Alfred too held Dick in his heart like a glowing ember that he never wanted to see go out.

Alfred wanted Dick back as much as anyone else but part of him just hoped Bruce would mourn and move on, a part of him didn’t want to see his boy waste his life over the memory of someone that may never return. Maybe that was cruel and it did make him feel terrible but Bruce’s whole existence couldn’t be defined by loss, it was Alfred’s job to see to it that he found more to live for.

It took a while for the tears to subside, they slid into wrinkles and pooled in the grooves of Alfred’s skin, making his sorrow unsightly, not nearly as dramatic as the crystalline tears of a young person but rather embarrassingly messy and runny and loud. Alfred hated crying.

*

The day of the funeral started out chilly and cloudy despite being Spring, it wavered between the promise of drizzling rain or the hope of sunlight peeking between the clouds.

Alfred awoke as early as always and went through his usual routine, his head hurt like a hangover from all the crying but the manor was quiet and he planned on letting Bruce sleep as late as possible before the alpha had to get up and make himself presentable for the funeral.

Speaking of the funeral, Alfred began to prepare for it, it would take place in the afternoon and he already had food prepared the day before for all the people that were bound to show up, he was working of setting everything up and waiting for a massive flower delivery when the doorbell rang.

Alfred wiped his hands and straightened his clothes on his way to the foyer, he opened the door as cordially as ever, expecting one of the mourners arriving early but instead he was greeted by a familiar young boy. The kid wore a red hoodie and expensive jeans and had a camera hanging around his neck, he had black hair contrasting with milky skin and pale blue eyes.

Didn’t this child live nearby? Alfred was sure he’d seen him before. Was it one of Dick’s friends?

“May I help you?” The butler was polite but serious, this wasn’t a good day for surprise visitors.

“My name is Tim Drake.” The boy stared at him with resolve in his eyes. “I’d like to talk to Batman.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always comments are my only compensation, they inspire me and motivate me to write faster.  
> So please, do share any thoughts you have.


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